Toy guns buyback attracts abuse

A woman's campaign for a buyback of toy guns has attracted abusive comments and forced her to change a Facebook page.

Adelaide mother Sam Paior said she talked about last week's United States massacre with her sons and came up with the idea of giving them $5 to throw out each of their toy guns.

The idea quickly attracted global online and media coverage, but the Facebook page was overrun by abusive comments and she has now turned it into a closed group.

Ms Paior said she decided to give her sons 12-year-old Ben and 10-year-old Bailey $5 for each toy gun they threw out.

"I was talking about the [Connecticut] massacre with my kids and wondering what we could do about it," she said.

"Part of my thinking was that we've got these horrible replica assault rifles and disgusting weapon-looking things and I said 'Let's gather them all together and chuck them out'."

Awareness

Ms Paior said one son jumped at the idea but the other baulked.

"I'm not interested in banning toy guns, I'm just interested in giving parents and families an option and another way to get rid of the guns in their house and to learn a bit about mental health and about gun safety," she said.

Ms Paior said she was happy for her children to keep playing with water pistols and nerf guns but did not want replicas of real guns in her home.

"They came home from the Royal Show with other people with a bunch of really nasty-looking replica weapons and I just thought we just don't need those in our lives," she said.

"This is more a symbolic gesture. This is just a way of showing our support to those families in the US and a way of starting the conversation with your kids."

Ms Paior said she was thinking of organising a fundraiser to collect money for support groups and raise awareness of the weapons issue.